Summary

This publication is a part of a five case studies exploring the possibility to establish payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes for biodiversity conservation in two new EU Member States and three candidate countries, namely Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Turkey. The report forms a part of a project "Complementary Financing for Environment in the Context of Accession – Innovative Resources" (070201/2006/443879/MAR/E3) that has been carried out by the WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme and IEEP for the European Commission in 2006-2007. The report on Croatia assesses the value and discusses possibilities of payments for ecosystem services of the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park - the largest maintained inundation area in the Danube river catchment. The opportunity costs and proposed payments for environmental services (PES) in the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park have been calculated using the most likely development scenarios for the three major land use categories: grassland, arable land and forest. In all scenarios transaction costs have been taken into account. Various options have been assessed, including six scenarios assuming conversion to organic farming management: 1) Conversion of the current grazing practice to organic management. 2) Abandoned pastures conversion to organic management. 3) Conversion of current meadows management to organic. 4) Abandoned meadows conversion to organic management 5) Conversion of maize production to organic management. 6) Conversion of wheat production to organic management.